DP World Head Shares Plans for India’s Ports

DP World’s Chairman and CEO, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, has highlighted the importance of India in its port and supply chain strategies, calling the country’s growth “one of the best in the world” in interviews with Bloomberg and CNBC.

Bin Sulayem, who was attending the World Government Summit over the weekend in Dubai, praised India for its pace of growth before stating that the port operator was ready to take advantage of it.

One of the key problems that DP World is going to have to address is the state of trucking in the country.

In his Bloomberg interview, Bin Sulayem said that the NIIF project would “remove any inefficiencies in the supply chain” as India’s main barrier to development was not the availability of ports, but “taking cargo to the end customer and vice-versa”.

Bin Sulayem also stated that the new government of India has helped transform the port sector through digitization with its focus on “ease of doing business” in another interview with CNBC (below).

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently implemented a nationwide program that is ensuring more efficient cargo clearance at Indian seaports and airports through customs authorities replacing manual paperwork with digital systems.

Bin Sulayem added: “The problem in India is when [cargo] is in the dock, it’s another matter to take it into the city.

“Once you take it out of the gate then it is with the logistic transportation, which takes a lot of time to reach … trucking is difficult in India, so we’re looking at waterways, rivers, transportation.”